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The Birth of a Nation: An Insult to Cinema and Sensibility At its release, D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was regarded as a revolutionary and masterful piece of cinema. It was heralded as one of the greatest films ever made for the next fifty years, and is still revered by some for its amazing visuals and ground-breaking cinematic techniques. But these praises, some of which may be well deserved, obscure the film’s blatantly racist and offensive content in the minds of many viewers. Some of the most egregious aspects of The Birth of a Nation’s deeply rooted racism are expressed through the contrasting characters of Silas Lynch and Ben Cameron.
Ben Cameron is a white man, and the eldest son of an affluent plantation owner
Lynch and Stoneman move to Piedmont to oversee the reconstruction, and Lynch soon takes control of the town when he is appointed as lieutenant governor. Silas Lynch, who is presented as the antithesis of Ben Cameron and the main villain of the film, represents the dangers of letting a black person have freedom and power. Lynch, who has been told by Austin Stoneman that he can be the equal of any white man, uses his new political influence to terrorize the white population of piedmont, and to supplant his black biased agenda over the traditions of the south. In one of the more outrageous scenes of the film Lynch’s black supporters actually block white voters from reaching the ballot box during an election, effectively denying the historical struggle of African American voters to gain proper suffrage rights by reversing the roles in the film. This scene is also used to make the viewer feel sympathetic toward the Ku Klux Klan when they deny African Americans the ability to vote at the end of the
W. Griffith uses Ben Cameron to show that white men are natural leaders, and that they should posses power and control over everyone else. He uses Silas Lynch to show the consequences of giving power to an African American man, and to show that white people and black people should not miscegenate. In Roger Ebert’s insightful review of the film, he says that “As slavery is the great sin of America, so The Birth of a Nation is Griffith’s sin, for which he tried to atone all the rest of his life”. But the racism in the film is completely unforgivable, and it should not be ignored simply because it displayed some innovative film techniques. The Birth of a Nation is an embarrassment to American cinema, history, and
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
Over the past decades, Hollywood movies have brought out the representations of racial inequality through out various themes of racism and stereotypical ways. One frequent type of racial inequality is that there is a culture or race that is belittled, under-privilege and inferior while the other is superior and high in order. In “The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die” by Matt Zoller Seitz, He identifies the term “magical negro” as: “a saintly African American character who acts as a mentor to a questing white hero, who seems to be disconnected from the community that he adores so much, and who often seems to have an uncanny ability to say and do exactly what needs to be said or done in order to keep the story chugging along in the hero’s favor” (408) and in Mitu Sengupta “ Race Relations Light Years from the Earth” the author examines the movie Avatar as a racist film, and focuses on how it resembles the “white messiah” stereotype. The term “white messiah” is known as a white individual who hold superior power, according to David Brooks of the New York Times, “a stereotype that white people are rationalistic and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic, and that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades” (Sengupta 213). Both articles dwell and explain the two terms and how it portrays the themes of racism and stereotypes through two elements, known as author’s purpose and main idea. These elements effectively convey the theme because it prevents our thoughts from being scattered by a broad spectrum of ideas and instead, it tells you exactly what is going to be discussed throughout the article.
Over past decades, Hollywood movies have brought out the representations of racial inequality through out various themes of racism and stereotypical ways. One frequent type of racial inequality is that there is a culture or race that is belittled, under-privilege and inferior while the other is superior and high in order. In “The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die” by Matt Zoller Seitz, He identifies the term “magical negro” as: “a saintly African American character who acts as a mentor to a questing white hero, who seems to be disconnected from the community that he adores so much, and who often seems to have an uncanny ability to say and do exactly what needs to be said or done in order to keep the story chugging along in the hero’s favor” (408) and in Mitu Sengupta “ Race Relations Light Years from the Earth” the author examines the movie Avatar as a racist film, and focuses on how it resembles the “white messiah” stereotype. The term “white messiah” is known as a white individual who hold superior power, according to David Brooks of the New York Times, “a stereotype that white people are rationalistic and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic, and that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades” (Sengupta 213). Both articles dwell and explain the two terms and how it portrays the themes of racism and stereotypes through two elements, known as author’s purpose and main idea. These elements effectively convey the theme because it prevents our thoughts from being scattered by a broad spectrum of ideas and instead, it tells you exactly what is going to be discussed throughout the article.
Between the years of 1954 to 1968, racism was at its peak in the South. This occurred even though the blacks were no longer slaves as of 1865 when slavery was abolished. The blacks were treated very poorly and they were still considered unequal to whites. Hiram, the main character of this novel, is a 9 year old boy who is clueless about racism. He is moved from the South to the North, away from his favorite grandfather. He wishes to go back to Mississippi and to be with his grandfather again. He never understood why his father, Harlan, wouldn't let him go. Hiram, who moved from Mississippi to Arizona, is in for a rude awakening when he is visiting his Grandfather in Greenwood, Mississippi at 16 years old. In the novel Mississippi Trial 1955, there were many complicated relationships among Hiram, Harlan, and Grandpa Hillburn. These relationships were complicated because of racism at
This motivation and purpose are most evident in the quality of Wexler’s writing, made outstanding by her painstaking awareness throughout the text of, firstly, such fundamental things as setting and the introduction of characters, and, secondly, the overarching threads of, for instance, national and state politics, which set the larger stage for the story. In her text, Wexler briefly mentions a prominent figure in the NAACP, Walter White, noting his biting statements regarding the lynching a ...
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Being one of the few black students to attend Tisch School of the Arts, the aspiring filmmaker’s first year at New York University was a particularly difficult one. Lee’s experiences, race, and upbringing have all led him to create controversial films to provide audiences with an insight into racial issues. Spike Lee’s first student production, The Answer, was a short ten minute film which told of a young black screenwriter who rewrote D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. The film was not well accepted among the faculty at New York University, stating Lee had not yet mastered “film grammar.” Lee went on to believe the faculty took offense to his criticisms towards the respected director’s stereotypical portrayals of black characters (1).
In D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation the interactions between black and white characters represent Griffith’s view of an appropriate racial construct in America. His ideological construction is white dominance and black subordination. Characters, such as the southern Cameron’s and their house maid, who interact within these boundaries, are portrayed as decent people. Whereas characters who cross the line of racial oppression; such as Austin Stoneman, Gus and Silas Lynch, are portrayed as bad. Both Lynch and Lydia Brown, the mulatto characters, are cast in a very negative light because they confuse the ideological construct the most. The mixing of races puts blacks and whites on a common ground, which, in Griffith’s view, is a big step in the wrong direction. Griffith portrays how the relationship between blacks and whites can be good only if the color line and positions of dominance and subordination are maintained. Through the mulatto characters he illustrates the danger that blurring the color line poses to American society.
They give him what he believes to be victories-the opportunity for a speech, the chance to prove his worth in the battle royal, the college scholarship-all of it, to keep him running. He finally realizes it. By studying this fascinating character which , I think, represents all blacks of that time I discovered that the prejudice is one problem that we as a society have to become more aware of. We have to get past the cover, and open up the book and read it before we judge. If people would do this it
Cinema had a history of being “selfish” with the use of the black actor and as Guerrero states in Framing Blackness, blacks were rarely cast as complex characters and used as the problem in which the white man would “fix”. This characterized the mainstream expectations in film then and into Poitier’s emergence into Hollywood. With Poitier however, he worked alongside those directors in Hollywood who looked down upon racism and shared the same views as he, working together to push the political message of racial integration both within the films and off the screen. With the mainstream audience being that characterized by...
The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the most controversial movies ever made in Hollywood, some people even consider it the most controversial movie in the long history of Hollywood. Birth of a Nation focuses on the Stoneman family and their friendship with the Cameron’s, which is put into question due to the Civil War, and both families being on different sides. The whole dysfunction between the families is carried out through important political events such as: Lincoln’s assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Kan. D.W. Griffith is the director of the movie, and him being born into a confederate family in the South, the movie portrays the South as noble and righteous men, who are fighting against the evil Yankees from the North, who have black union soldiers among them, whom overtake the town of Piedmont, which leads the KKK to take action and according to the movie become the savior of white During this essay, I will focus on the themes of racial inequality, racism, and the archetypical portrayal of black people in the movie, which are significant, especially during the era when the film was released. Black face in Hollywood was very common, especially during the time the film Birth of a Nation was released.
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013). In the remainder of my essay I will be commenting on many modern films and their use on this trope, and why subscribing to this filmmaking strategy is problematic.
In the movie Birth of a Nation, the first half of the story is based off the Civil War, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The movie is divided into two parts, Pre-Civil War America and Reconstruction. After covering the Civil War, the story starts to introduce the Southern Camerons and Northern Stonemans. Birth of a Nation is told from the perspectives of these two families. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and Reconstruction is introduced in the second half. In the second half of the movie, racism becomes more apparent.
Mapes, the white sheriff who traditionally dealt with the black people by the use of intimidation and force, finds himself in a frustrating situation of having to deal with a group of black men, each carrying a shotgun and claiming that he shot Beau Boutan. In addition, Candy Marshall, the young white woman whose family owns the plantation, claims that she did it. As each person tells the story, he takes the blame and, with it the glory.